Low Voltage Switchgear and ControlGear Assemblies (LVSCA) are used to distribute electrical power in residential, commercial and industrial applications. For the purpose of explanation embodiments of the invention will be described in the context of high end commercial and Industrial market segments.
Within these market segments there are generally two types of LVSCA                Commercial applications generally use electrical switchboards which predominately are for the distribution of electrical power for Light and Power applications. These would include, major shopping centres, office buildings, factories. The switchboard distributes power for lighting, air conditioning, refrigeration, air conditioning and electrical equipment including power for general use and computer installations.        Industrial installations can use electrical switchboards but also use Motor Control Centres. MCC are used to control the starting and stopping of electrical motors in mining, water treatment, processing, conveyors, mills and like installations. These applications are generally further controlled by programmable logic controllers PLCs that are programmed for each application.        
Electrical Switchboards and Motor Control Centres are similar in their application but differ in the type of equipment installed.                Electrical switchboard predominately use Switchgear        MCC use a combination of Switchgear and Controlgear i.e. Motor Control.Generally speaking Motor Control Centre manufacturing is considered more technically challenging than Electrical Switchboard manufacturing and requires a higher degree of engineering.        
Most switchboards are manufactured from sheet steel panels bolted together to form an enclosure. This is fitted with a busbar system mounted on insulated busbar supports and depending on the technical requirements the switchboard will be divided by sheetmetal partitions in to various compartments. Compartments can generally be defined as follows,                Main incoming functional unit        Busbar zone        Outgoing functional unit        Cable zoneThese compartments are generally segregated by sheetmetal partitions.        
In all applications where electrical Switchboards and MCCs are involved there is a minimum of one incoming supply, but there may be more, which connect to a main busbar system that generally runs the length of the LVSCA. There are then branch busbars that further distribute power, generally vertically, through the LVSCA the final circuits connect to switchgear and control gear which is connected to these branch busbars.
Traditional construction provides for various sizes of busbar for these applications e.g. a main busbar rated at 4000 A may consist of 4×80×10 mm busbars per phase and neutral. A branch busbar of 1000 A may consist of 1×80×10 mm busbar per phase and neutral.
Typical ratings of LVSCAs are as follows,
Commercial Electrical switchboards
                Voltage 380V-440V        Current ratings 1250 A, 1600 A, 2500 A, 3200 A, 4000 A        Dielectric Withstand Voltage 2500V        Fault Rating 50/65 kA        Creepage & clearance Distance 13 mmMCC        Voltage 380V-690V        Current ratings 1250 A, 1600 A, 2500 A, 3200 A, 4000 A, 6300 A        Dielectric Withstand Voltage 2500/6000V        Fault Rating 50/65/80 kA (up to 100 ka rarely)        Creepage & clearance Distance 13/16/19 mm        
Traditional LVSCA have relied on open bare air insulated busbar systems. In particular the commercial application for switchboards are generally custom built with little or no repetitive assembly or component techniques use. Busbars are generally air insulated and supported on various types of custom or moulded busbar supports. Busbar supports are fitted where it is convenient for the manufacturer, or at maximum spacings. Insulation is normally not used or if it is used it is heatshrink insulation with separate boots over the busbar joints. This is labour intensive in its installation and application.
FIG. 1. Shows a portion of a prior art LVSCA 100, including horizontal bus bars 1 and vertical bus bars 3. Vertical bus bar insulator assembly 5 and horizontal bus bar insulator assembly 7 are also shown in FIG. 1. The connection means comprises steel mounting brackets 11 with slip-on insulator blocks 13. Both sets of insulator assemblies 5, 7, have a plurality of components. Interconnecting holding bolt assemblies 9 also involve a number of components. The bars 1, 3 of the bus bar assemblies are exposed to surrounding atmospheric conditions and contaminates. Air insulated busbars require significant inter-bar spacing for both phase-to phase and phase-to-earth. This is to reduce the risk of foreign matter building up and creating short circuit conditions or arcing fault conditions between the bars. Foreign matter can be any number of things, dust, rodents, swarf from drilling or cutting, insects, carbon. In addition, the bare bus bars 1, 3 present a shock risk to a person doing maintenance or modifications to the LVSCA.
It is an object of the invention to provide an apparatus to assist in interconnection of busbars that overcomes one or more of the problems of the prior art that have been discussed above.